Independent research into the habits of email users has found that 37 per cent do not file emails at all, or do so very infrequently.

A quarter of the population never files its emails, another 12 per cent files them only 'infrequently' and the worst offenders struggle with inboxes containing as many as 50,000 emails, according to email management company Kinomi. 

While it is not surprising that so many users have overfilled inboxes, there is a growing concern that users have no set policies when it comes to archiving email.

The research found that many users were unable to find an email sent to them at any point in the past five years.

Legislation and regulatory demands mean that companies are obliged to produce information relating to all aspects of their business for as long as five years.

"The survey made very interesting reading. People are being drowned in email, with some receiving 100-150 a day," said Nigel Cannings, managing director of Kinomi.

"People cannot find emails, and don't seem to know that there are tools that exist to make the search easier. But even when they do use tools, they have to remember the name of someone who may have sent them an email years ago."

Cannings also pointed out that, while the number of business emails has soared to 60 billion a year, the volume of mail is not the only problem.

"The email problem is roughly 50 per cent retrieval and 50 per cent management," he said.